


The Bite That Binds

by pinkwithoutplot



Category: Supernatural, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-21 18:57:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8256769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkwithoutplot/pseuds/pinkwithoutplot
Summary: Dub con wolf sex ahead, folks. Fair warning ;)





	1. Chapter 1

 

“Feel me, completer  
down to my core  
open my heart and let it  
bleed onto yours

Feeding on fever  
down all fours  
show you what all that  
howl is for…”

The Impala cut a swathe through the darkness, twin beams of pale light catching streaks of rain. They swept the ground ahead as the Chevy sped down a dirt track lined either side with tall, skinny pines, just the kind of woods you’d expect a big, bad wolf to be lurking in.  
“Not far now, Sammy.” Dean jerked his thumb at the driver’s window as they passed a road sign. “Beacon Hills eight kilometres.”  
Sam yawned.  
“Great. I’m beat. Let’s stop at the first place we see, okay?”  
Dean nodded. He turned up the music and cracked the window, breathing in the mulchy air and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.  
Sam jiggled his leg, growing impatient now that the possibility of a real bed was within his grasp.  
“Oh God, just give me a warm room, a soft mattress and some clean sheets. I swear, I’ll never complain about accommodation ever again if I don’t have to sleep in the car tonight,” he said, rolling his head from side to side to work out a crick.  
“Shhh,” Dean said, caressing the dashboard in a way that Sam found disturbing. “He doesn’t mean it, Baby.”  
“Jesus. That’s just…unhealthy. Fine, Dean. You can sleep here, and I’ll get a room to myself.”  
Dean scowled.  
But half an hour later, they still hadn’t found a place to bunk down for the night. The small town’s few motels all displayed lit no vacancy signs. The driving rain got heavier with each passing mile and placards along the winding roads through the forests and along the coastal cliffs warned of rock slides and flash floods. No wonder there was a dearth of beds. Anyone with an iota of sense would have sought shelter hours ago.  
“Son of a bitch!” Dean thumped the wheel, making Sam start. He was tired and starting to act crotchety. Being cooped up with his brother when he got in one of his moods was no picnic, Sam knew from bitter experience, and three nights sleeping in the Impala had done little for fraternal relations.  
They’d spent a pretty sorry Christmas together, hired a room nicer than they’d usually allow themselves and taken a few days off, Dean trying to act cheerful while slowly murdering his grey cells with cheap liquor, and Sam trying not to show that he was now almost constantly plagued by flashbacks of the terrible things he’d done the previous year. Memories of Hell clamoured behind death’s wall, threatening to break it down and drown him any second. He was keeping a tight lid on things, but since Rhode Island, he felt Dean’s anxiety. It was palpable, a third presence, sitting in the back seat.  
The New Year had got off to a slow start. Money had been tight and regular work was hard to come by. It felt like they were on the edge of precipice, waiting for something terrible to break. A run-of-the-mill werewolf or shape-shifter might be just the distraction they needed right now.  
“Okay, look, just pull off the road. We’ll drive into the trees, find some shelter, and grab a few hours sleep. You’re too tired to drive and I can barely keep my eyes open. Let’s just wait for daylight, then when the tourists get back on the road, we’ll bag us a room for a hot shower and a proper rest. What d’you say?”  
“Sleep in the woods? I musta dropped you on your head when you were a baby. We’re tracking werewolves, Sam. Werewolves. You know, those things with big teeth and even bigger claws. Love to stalk around and hunt, oh…hold up, let me see now…in the woods.”  
Sam rolled his eyes.  
“We’re tooled up. And if it makes you feel better, we can take shifts. I’ll keep first watch. If you have a better idea, I’d love to hear it.”  
Dean shrugged and huffed, but he indicated and turned off onto one of the narrow roads which lead into the trees.  
Sickly moonlight seeped through the branches as they drove deeper into the woods. The engine rumbled and small creatures darted about in the shadows, making Sam jumpy. He pinched the bridge of his nose, wishing he’d had a second cup of coffee after dinner.  
“What’s that?”  
Dean pointed up ahead.  
Sure enough, there was something in the distance, the outline of a house just visible through the pines.  
“Let’s check it out.”  
They found the place set in a clearing. The meandering roads which lead to the front porch seemed little-used, strewn with leaf litter and overgrown in places. No light emitted from the dirty windows, and as the Impala’s headlamps illuminated the exterior wall, Sam could see the paintwork was blistered and blackened.  
“Looks like fire damage,” Dean said.  
Sam nodded.  
“Yeah. Insurance write-off. Abandoned, most likely. You wanna take a look inside?”  
Dean stifled a yawn with his sleeve.  
“It’s hardly the Four Seasons, Sammy. I don’t even think it has a roof anymore.”  
“But the lower floors might be dry. We can at least stretch out. Put sleeping bags down. Lay salt lines. C’mon, Dean. My cramps have cramps, at this point.”  
“Okay, Sasquatch. Let’s get you and your freakishly long limbs some rest.”  
Dean got out of the car and Sam followed, pulling his collar up against the rain. They retrieved a pair of handguns loaded with silver bullets, and their flashlights from the trunk and they crept up onto the porch. The old boards creaked underfoot, and the warped front door swung open as they approached.  
Dean reached forward for the handle, but there was a crunching sound and he stumbled forward as his foot broke through a charred section of wood.  
“Dean!” Sam slipped himself under his brother’s arm, giving him purchase to pull himself free.  
“Sonofabitch!” Dean hissed, stooping to rub at his ankle. “Splinters!”  
Sam smiled, relieved that he hadn’t broken or twisted anything.  
“You think you can soldier on? And without waking the whole county?”  
Dean glowered and shoved Sam away from where he was still tucked up under his shoulder. Sam chuckled.  
Dean pushed the door all the way open, and Sam peered inside, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the thick gloom of the house. Their flashlights picked out details – tattered wall paper, a mouldy carpet, broken shutters. A crust of dampened dust and ashes covered visible surface, and nothing appeared to have been disturbed for years. Wind howled through the upper storey and rain pattered down through the numerous holes in the roof and dripped onto the upper floor. Down here though, it was relatively sheltered.  
“Like I said, Sam. Hardly the Four Seasons.”  
Dean wore a smug look, clearly feeling vindicated, but Sam was too tired to bite.  
“I’m gonna take a look around. Mind your step. These floorboards feel rotten in places.”  
He trod carefully across the hall and into what looked like a living room. Overstuffed chairs had been nibbled by mice and rats, and the walls bore the same black smudges of smoke damage as the outside. Dean’s footfall echoed around somewhere behind him. Sam listened as a door squeaked on its hinges and Dean’s boots clunked down a set of steps into what was presumably a basement.  
Sam glanced over at the mantelpiece and the group of photos which stood in frames there. Most of them had been consumed by fire, the glass broken and the pictures too bubbled and darkened to make out. But there were one or two which had survived. A couple of pretty girls smiled in one. Another showed a dark-haired boy gazing into the distance, pensive. He was beautiful, chiselled and even-featured in the same way that Dean was. Sam picked up the photo and scrutinised the face in his flashlight beam. The boy’s eyes were green, like Dean’s, and they held the same haunted quality. The face of someone with secrets.  
Sam’s stomach squeezed in a brief pang of something confusing as he considered his brother’s looks. Objectively, Dean was a good-looking guy. No one could deny that. Not even his slightly jealous little brother. But Dean’s finely-moulded face, the cock-sure façade which belied his numerous insecurities, acted as a beacon to those who were out for what they could get, and Sam hated that his brother almost always gave it to them.  
But he hated it even more that recently, since Lisa had thrown in the towel, Dean acted like a monk. It hadn’t bothered Sam before he got his soul back, but now he was whole again, Sam felt his brother’s sadness and loss like a dead weight around his neck. It was pretty obvious that Lisa’s decision had a lot to do with Sam’s return, and Sam bore that knowledge with equal parts guilt and a tarnished sort of pride. His brother chose him. Again. And now, after a hunt, when they went out for a beer or something stronger, Dean ignored the women circling him, the lascivious glances from barmaids and diner waitresses and even the odd trucker, and focused all of his attention on Sam.  
No doubt this guy would have people falling over themselves every time he walked into a bar too. Assuming he was still alive, of course. The thought that his soulful face might have been burned away upset Sam for some reason.  
Sam replaced the picture and turned his attention to the couch cushions. He picked one up and turned it over. It was dry and relatively stain-free. They would make a decent enough nest for them to curl up on for a few hours. Dean would probably moan about having to sleep in the same space as his brother, but he’d be secretly grateful for the warmth and the simple joy of just knowing that, for the time being, they were whole and breathing and together. God, Sam needed sleep – he was getting sentimental.  
Sam headed back out to fetch their sleeping bags and a tub of salt from the car, but a noise from downstairs stopped him as he reached the front door. It sounded like a heavy object falling and being dragged across the floor, followed by a sharp cry, and something which sounded like a growl.  
Sam pulled out his gun and sprung towards the door to the cellar.  
“Dean!”  
“Sammy!”  
His brother’s voice sent a wash of relief through him.  
“Sam! It’s coming up the stairs!”  
The door flew open and Sam saw a blur of sharp, red-smeared teeth and hair before an impact square in the middle of his chest flung him back across the hall. Hot, wet breath ghosted over his throat and snapping and snarling reverberated in his ears as he struggled to free himself from under two-hundred pounds of muscle and sleek fur. Sam smelt fresh blood as the thing licked his jawline. A sick thrill trickled from the wet stripe, down through him and pulsed dimly in his dick, and then it was gone, and Sam lay panting and dazed, staring up at the ceiling.  
Dean’s face appeared, hovering over him.  
“Sam!”  
“Yeah, I’m okay. What the Hell happened?”  
“Werewolf! A fucking werewolf happened!”  
Sam’s heart sank as he thought about how many ‘told-you-so’s he’d have to endure over the next few days. Dean hauled him to his feet and ran out onto the porch, gun drawn. Sam followed as quickly as he could on his shaky legs.  
“See it?”  
“No! Fucker’s taken off into the trees. C’mon.”  
Sam sighed as he realised sleep was now out of the question. He followed Dean down the porch steps, but his torch beam caught Dean’s leg and the dark patch which was soaking the denim and spreading by the second.  
“Dean! Your leg!”  
Dean shone his own flashlight down at his leg and looked up at his brother.  
“Sonofabitch.”  
“It’s bleeding. A lot. Come on back inside and let me look at it.”  
“Sam, there’s a werewolf out there and it’s getting away. I’ll deal with the graze later.”  
“Dean, it’s oozing through your pants. Just let me take a look before you lose any more blood, or you won’t be in a fit state to hunt a toy poodle, let alone a werewolf.”  
Dean swayed a little on his feet. Sam swung his torch over his brother’s face and took in the waxy pallor of his skin. He grabbed Dean’s elbow and steered him back to the house.  
He pushed him down onto the couch and helped Dean unbuckle and shuck his pants. Black-red blood coated his right leg, and seeped from four deep puncture marks.  
Sam’s world tilted. All the saliva in his mouth dried up and his heart hammered against his ribs.  
“Dean,” he said, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice. “I think it bit you.”  
Dean looked down at his leg, eyelids fluttering and he stared for a while before weakly punching the arm of the couch.  
“Fuck! Fuckfuckfuck!”  
“Hey!” Sam held his arm. “Take it easy. I’ll clean you up and stitch it, then we’ll call Bobby.”  
“Sam,” Dean’s voice slurred. “We both know what this means. It didn’t eat my heart, but if I survive the bite, I’m gonna be-”  
“Shhh!” Sam ripped a length off the bottom of his t-shirt and wadded it up to hold over the bite. “Just try to relax. I need to go get the medi-kit. Just stay with me. Okay?”  
Dean nodded and Sam raced out to the Impala and rummaged around in the trunk for the first aid kit and a new shirt from his duffle bag. Fear and adrenaline made his hands clumsy, and he took a few deep breaths before he went back inside, willing his nausea and panic away. He needed to stay strong for Dean.  
“Here we are,” he said, dumping the supplies on the couch next to his brother. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” He poured rubbing alcohol on the wound, Dean flinching and moaning as it soaked into the raw flesh, and wiped it clean as best as he could with the remnants of his t-shirt. It took him a few attempts to thread the needle, but he tried to keep his breathing even as he started to suture the ragged tears. He talked to Dean while he worked, his brother’s grunts telling him at least he was still conscious. Sam jabbed into the skin over and over, his fingers slick with blood, drawing the messy edges of the bite together until he’d almost entirely stemmed the flow.  
By the time he’d finished, Dean was breathing slowly and deeply, his eyes closed. Sam chanced laying his palm against his brother’s chest and felt the heartbeat strong and steady there. He slipped out into the hall and punched Bobby’s number into his cell phone. He picked up after four rings, his voice gruff down the line.  
“Yeah?”  
“Bobby. It’s me.”  
“Sam?”  
Bobby didn’t bark at him, didn’t ask him if he knew what time it was. He just waited, tensed for a blow.  
“He’s alive.”  
A long exhalation came through the earpiece.  
“But he’s been bitten. By a werewolf.”  
“Jesus, Sam. Is it bad?”  
“Bled a lot. I’ve stitched it. As soon as it’s light, I’ll get him somewhere I can clean it properly, but if infection doesn’t get him, then…”  
He trailed off, a lump forming in his gullet and strangling his words.  
“Okay, boy, just sit tight. I’ll make some calls. You got the one who did it?”  
“He got away.”  
“Damn it. I’m pretty sure killing the one who bit him won’t cure Dean, but it sure wouldn’t hurt to get ahold of some of its blood.”  
“Right. I’ll handle it, Bobby.”  
“All right then. Try to keep his temperature down and keep a close eye on him. Full moon’s coming and he won’t be able to control himself. Not this soon.”  
“There’s gotta be a way though, right? I mean, that vamp turned him and we got him back. I mean, you know him, Bobby. Even if we can control him, he won’t wanna…he can’t be…he couldn’t live with himself. His code, y’know?”  
Sam’s stomach turned as he remembered the twisted pleasure of power (and something else it wouldn’t do to examine too closely) he’d felt as he watched that vampire suckle on his brother’s throat while his hips rocked restlessly against Dean’s and he painted his plush mouth with tainted blood.  
“Well, it goes without saying you can’t let him feed on human hearts. There might be a way. But Sam, full disclosure, I ain’t never heard of one. Just try to keep everything as normal as possible for the time being. I need to consult some books, speak to some experts. Used to be we thought silver bullets and killing the maker was enough, but we know now that ain’t the case.”  
Sam’s brow furrowed.  
“What, wait. Silver bullets won’t kill a wolf?”  
“Well, sure they will if you fire them into the heart or the brain, say, but then so will a regular bullet if the wolf can’t heal before the tissues die. They’re the same as you me ‘cept for the shape-shiftin’, strength, speed and superior healing abilities. You wanna be safe, I suggest decapitation. Something it’s harder to heal from.”  
“Got it. Anything else?”  
“There’s some lore about things that slow ‘em down. Electricity, some herbs and flowers, fire, the usual. I’ve got a bunch o’ stuff in the store cupboard, might come in handy. Wolfsbane, mistletoe, some other bits and pieces that might poison ‘em. Sorta like a werewolf care package. Text me your address and I’ll get it couriered over to you. It’s said they can’t shift during a total eclipse, but that ain’t much use to us right now.”  
“Right.”  
“And Sam, don’t get bit and don’t drink rainwater out of his footprints.”  
“What?”  
“Well, you never know.”  
“Okay. And Bobby?”  
“Yeah?”  
“Please hurry.”

Dean’s fever blazed through the night. Sam stayed awake, lying next to his brother on the freezing, draughty floor, the couch cushions and Dean’s over-heated skin doing little to keep the chill at bay. He watched Dean mutter and twitch in his sleep, the almost dog-like way his limbs scrabbled and jerked. It was probably for the best. The constant fear of slipping into Hell memories haunted Sam’s dreams these days. The first fingers of sunlight sliding across the scorched floor were a welcome sight. Sam got to his feet and stretched. Dean rolled into the hollow he left. Sam looked out of the filthy, blown out window and saw that the rainclouds had given way to a dazzling white sky. A fine mist hung just over the drenched tree tops and the smell of pine pervaded the chill air.  
The shadow flashed lightning quick in his periphery, so fast that it could have been his imagination. But then it moved again. Not a deer or a racoon, but something upright. Sam fumbled for his gun and crept to the front door and out of the house. He covered the open ground in a few long strides and ran into the woods. He heard a crash behind him and saw a man, shirtless and with short dark hair, sprinting away, towards the house. Sam gave chase, but the man was unnaturally fast. As he reached the clearing, he saw the man stood peering into the Impala. Sam raised his gun and cocked it. The man looked. It was the boy from the photograph. He was probably Sam’s age. He wore jeans and nothing else- barefoot and bare-chested- and his green eyes startling, even from this distance. His gaze met Sam’s for a split second and then he was off, leaping up onto the car’s roof, atop the porch and up over the roof of the house.  
Sam could only stand open-mouthed as he made his escape. He remembered his brother and ran back to the house. Dean lay where he’d left him, snoring lightly.  
Sam leaned down and shook him gently by the shoulder.

“Dean! Hey. Dean. Wake up, man.”  
Dean’s eyelids flickered. There were spots of colour on his cheeks and he looked almost well rested.  
“Sam? What time is it?”  
“Early. It doesn’t matter. How do you feel?”  
Dean flexed his arms and legs and ran his fingers over his face. He yawned.  
“Actually, I feel pretty good. Really good. I grudgingly concede that sleeping in this spooky-ass house in the woods might not have been one of your worst ideas.”  
Sam frowned.  
“So you don’t remember anything about what happened?”  
Dean mirrored his brother’s expression.  
“Gimme a clue?”  
“The werewolf. Your leg?”  
Sam pulled the quilted sleeping bag away from his brother’s leg and gently tugged the blood-soaked tee-shirt from the place he’d stitched just a few hours previously.  
“Sam, what the fuck? Mind the goods!”  
“It’s gone!”  
Sam pawed at his brother’s thigh. Dried blood streaked the pale skin, but the stitches were gone and the tooth-marks had disappeared entirely Sam examined the shredded tee and saw pieces of thread stuck to it with crusted blood, as if the healing flesh had rejected and pushed it out.  
“That’s incredible. You were bitten, Dean? A werewolf. In the basement. Don’t you remember?”  
Dean looked down at the gore on his leg with wide eyes and shook his head.  
“I think, maybe, I can’t be sure, but I think I just saw the guy who did this. He leapt over the house in like three bounds, Dean. I mean it was incredible. I tried to take him down, but not a chance. That’s twice now he’s got one over on me. I’m sorry.”  
Dean’s eyes narrowed.  
“So what’re you telling me, Sam? A werewolf bit me, I don’t remember anything about it, and now I’m magically healed? I mean what does that…how would…I…oh my God.”  
Dean’s voice faltered. Sam looked down at his boots.  
“Sam. Tell me straight. Am I a monster?”  
“I’ve got Bobby looking into it, Dean. Let’s just get out of here, find a room, clean up. Get something to eat. We’ll talk about it over a nice burger, hmm? How ‘bout that?”  
Dean sneered.  
“Don’t baby me, Sam. I’ve been bitten by a goddamn werewolf, and it didn’t kill me, so that can only mean one thing. I’m one of them now, aren’t I?”  
Sam kept his eyes lowered.  
“AREN’T I?”  
Sam pressed his lips into a tight line and nodded.  
“Okay then. Well, there’s no cure for it that we know of, so you’re gonna have to do it, Sam. You have to put me down just like we did with Madison. It’s that simple.”  
“Dean. This isn’t the first time we’ve face something like this. What if Samuel knows something-”  
“No, Sam. The man tried to feed us to a demon hoard. Our own grandfather. Even if he knows something, he’s not gonna help us. Besides, I don’t think I could stop myself shooting the bastard in the face if I saw him again.”  
“We have to do something, Dean. I’m not gonna kill you, so we need to think of a plan. In the mean time we should find the one that did it and collect some blood. Remember the vampire spell? There’s a good chance we’ll need it.”  
“I’m warning you Sam, if you can’t do what needs to be done, I’ll do it myself. I’ll do it right now.”  
Dean drew out his gun and Sam threw himself on his knees in front of his brother, covering the hand holding the weapon with both of his own.  
“Please, Dean. Let’s just wait and see what Bobby comes back with before we do anything rash. Please.”  
Dean lowered the gun, a glacier-slow movement.  
“Before the full moon, Sam. If we haven’t found answers by then, this is the way it has to go down.”  
“Okay,” Sam whispered. “By the full moon.”

“This is him!”  
Sam’s voice pierced Dean’s skull, too loud just like every other sound at the moment. Dean had never realised what a noisy place the world was.  
“Can you keep it down, man. Seriously, my cranium feels like a tuning fork. Inside voice, Sam.”  
“Sorry.” Sam slapped the newspaper he’d been perusing down on the table in front of him. “This guy,” he stabbed at a grainy photo of some model-looking douchebag on the front page with his index finger, “is the guy I saw at the house.”  
“You serious?” Dean picked up the paper and read.  
Derek Hale, a former resident of Beacon Hills, was arrested and held in connection with the gruesome discovery of human remains, later identified as his sister, Laura Hale. However, the subsequent coroner’s report ruled that the cause of death was an animal attack.  
This is not the first time tragedy has struck the Hale family.  
“You think this is him? The werewolf who got me?”  
Sam shrugged.  
“It’s all we’ve got right now. He used to live in the house. His sister’s body was found scattered in the woods and the local sheriff thought he had something to do with it. Oh, and I saw him leap over a fucking house.”  
“Point taken.”  
Dean skimmed the rest of the article.  
“Says here the rest of the guy’s family burnt to death in that house a few years back.”  
“Weird.”  
“Right? So maybe he tried to bump off the whole clan, his sister survived and he came back to finish the job?”  
“Perhaps. Why though?”  
It was Dean’s turn to shrug.  
“According to this, a couple of joggers saw half of the body in the woods and two kids from the local high school found the rest buried just outside the Hale property. Nice.”  
“We should speak to them. The joggers, the kids, the sheriff.”  
“Sam.”  
“What?”  
“I get what you’re trying to do, and I appreciate it. I do. But acting like this is just a routine case doesn’t change the fact that I’m liable to wolf out any second. Moon is waxing, Sam, and I can’t be trusted. You know that.”  
“So what? I leave you chained up in this motel room until it happens and I have to put a bullet in your brain? No way. That’s not how we do things, Dean. You’re okay, right? I mean, you can think clearly? You’re not feeling an urge to eat my heart?”  
“Not yet, but-”  
“But nothing. You’re my brother, Dean, and you’re a hunter. That hasn’t changed. This is a case, and I need your help working it. Sure, the circumstances might be a little different, but all the more reason we need to throw everything we got at it. So help me, Dean. Help me figure this out until you can’t.”  
Dean swallowed past the lump in his throat.  
“All right, Sammy. This sheriff got a name?”

They sat on the bleachers watching the lacrosse game, Dean cramming a rare salt-beef sandwich into his mouth. It was good, but not quite what he craved. He wanted raw, dripping meat, although maybe it was psychosomatic. He was expecting the worst, sensing the oncoming full-bellied moon more keenly with each passing hour.  
A girl, a pretty green-eyed red-head, sat a few rows in front of them. She turned occasionally and smiled at Dean with intent that belied her tender years, and despite his upstairs brain’s disgust, his downstairs brain went into overdrive.  
“She’s a child, Dean.” Sam’s stern voice startled him out of his unsavoury daydream.  
“I know! What do you take me for? Just being friendly, Sam.” He tore off another hunk of the sandwich and tried not to think about burying his phantom snout between her pale thighs. “Which number did the sheriff say was his son?” he asked around a mouthful of dipped bread.  
“Twenty-four. On the bench. And the McCall kid is number eleven.”  
Dean swallowed the last of his snack. His stomach grumbled. He could easily eat another.  
The coach ran up and down along the edge of the field, waving his arms, his unruly hair flapping in the breeze.  
“My grandma can run faster than you – and she’s dead! Move your ass!”  
Dean smirked as his fingers spasmed with the sense-memory of nailing those kids at Truman High with a dodge ball.  
“I like him.”  
Sam snorted.  
“Yeah. He reminds me of someone.”  
“What sort of a name is Stiles anyway?”  
“It’s his name,” Sam said, giving Dean a look before flicking some breadcrumbs off his suit jacket lapel. “And you’re supposed to be on duty, agent, remember? Look sharp.”  
Dean pursed his lips and wiped them with the back of his hand. His eyes scanned the field. Number eleven, Scott McCall. Best friend of ‘Stiles’ Stilinski, number twenty-four, the son of the town sheriff. The two boys who found the missing half of the unfortunate Laura Hale. The McCall kid was fast.  
“Hey!” said Sam. “Didn’t the sheriff say Scott was asthmatic?”  
Dean nodded.  
“Yeah. Pretty bad, apparently. He said the boys had been playing Stand By Me, looking for a body to poke with a stick, and young Eddie Kaspbrak over there dropped his inhaler.”  
“That’s two different stories, Dean.”  
“What?”  
“Eddie Kaspbrak was It.”  
“Whatever. They were looking for the puffer when they saw the recently dug grave and found the top half of Laura Hale.”  
“But he never found it?”  
Dean flipped through his pocket notebook.  
“Not according to Sheriff Stilinski.”  
Sam pointed to where Scott was hurling a powerful shot.  
“He look like he’s crippled with breathing problems to you?”  
“Huh,” said Dean. “Good point. And while we’re on the subject, who plays lacrosse? What’s wrong with football or hockey?”  
Sam smiled.  
The coach blew a whistle, and the players jogged off the field. Scott took off his helmet and made his way over to Stiles. Dean took in his dark, floppy hair and boyish features. He reminded him a little of Sam when he’d been that age. The other kid, Stiles, turned around and Dean realised they were staring straight at him and Sam.  
“C’mon.” He nudged his brother and they trotted down the steps. “Stiles Stilinski and Scott McCall?”  
The shaven-headed one, Stiles, answered. “Who wants to know?”  
Cocky. Dean raised an eyebrow and drew out his badge.  
“Agent Livgren. And this is my partner, Agent Ehart. We just have a few questions about the night you found the remains of Laura Hale.”  
“FBI?” Scott said. “Why would the FBI be interested? It was an animal attack.”  
“Maybe so,” Sam said, drawing himself up to his full, imposing height, “but we like to leave no stone unturned.”  
The kid visibly blanched. Dean flicked his gaze to the Stiles kid just in time to see his Adam’s apple bob.  
“You boys mind telling us exactly what happened the night you found Laura Hale?”  
“We already told my dad everything,” Stiles said, chin tilted and nostrils slightly flared.  
“I appreciate that, but now we need you to run through it one more time.”  
Stiles sighed.  
“Last Wednesday, I heard the report come through from dispatch on my dad’s radio, so I waited until he’d gone out and then I grabbed Scott and we went into the woods. We scouted around for a bit then my dad caught us and he took me home.”  
“And what about Scott?” Sam said.  
Scott cleared his throat.  
“Yeah, I went home too.”  
“Was that before or after you dropped your inhaler?” Dean said.  
“What?” Scott’s gazed darted nervously between Sam and Dean, and Dean could’ve sworn there was a strange gold light glinting in his eyes at certain angles. He could hear the kid’s heartbeat too, speeding up by the second.  
“The inhaler you went back to the Hale house for?”  
“Oh, yeah. Well, I ran when we heard Sheriff Stilinski coming. Stiles said there was no point both of us getting busted. I must’ve dropped it then.”  
“So you lied to the sheriff when you originally told him Scott was home all night?”  
Both boys nodded.  
“But you ran straight home?” Sam’s voice was firm but warm.  
“Yeah.”  
A long pause hung in the air while Sam made notes in his pad and Dean scrutinised the boys. They were lying about something else. Lying or withholding. Stiles broke the silence.  
“So a couple nights later we went back to the burned-out house because Scott thought maybe he’d lost his inhaler in that area.”  
“So it’s on your way home?” Dean addressed Scott.  
“Huh?”  
“The Hale house? It’s on your way home?”  
Scott frowned.  
“Well, no, but I panicked when I heard Sheriff Stilinski and ran in that direction before I went home.”  
“But you just told Agent Ehart here that you went straight home.”  
Dean watched as Scott’s fists balled and he ducked his head down. His own fingers pulled taut in response, and he winced as he felt a sickening pain in his nail beds, as if his nails were being pried off from underneath.  
“He went further in until he heard us leave, and once the coast was clear he went straight home, isn’t that right, Scott?”  
The other boy kept his head down and grunted.  
“Look,” said Stiles, “this is quite stressful, and we’ve had a traumatic week, what with finding a half a dead girl and everything, so are we done?”  
“Almost,” said Dean, a half smile playing on his lips. “Do you know Derek Hale?”  
Stiles’ eyes opened a little wider and he licked his lips. Scott kept his head turned carefully away.  
“Yeah. Everyone round here’s heard of him. He was arrested. It was in the paper.”  
“But do you know him? Personally?”  
Stiles shook his head.  
“You hear or see anything else…strange in those woods?” Dean asked.  
“Stranger than half a corpse you, mean?”  
“Don’t be cute,” Sam said. “Just answer my partner’s question.”  
“You mean like X-Files weird?”  
“I mean like something you couldn’t explain. I mean, sure, maybe there’s a hungry mountain lion or a bear out there, but medical examiner said it looked more like a wolf had been at Laura Hale. You seen a wolf? Or something like a wolf?”  
Scott looked up. His rapid, shallow breaths sounded deafeningly loud to Dean.  
“Who are you? Really?”  
Sam tucked his notepad into his breast pocket.  
“We’re just here to help.”

“He’s one of ‘em, Sammy. I could feel it.”  
Dean paced the motel room carpet, taking large swigs of Scotch at each end of his run.  
“Yeah, well, you might be right, Dean. But he was scared. He didn’t seem like a killer to me.”  
“Maybe he’s not. Maybe he got bit around the same time as me. But the Wolf Moon’s coming, Sammy, and if he ain’t a killer, he’s gonna be one real soon. And so am I.”  
“We don’t know that, Dean.”  
“Don’t we?”  
“Look. Madison. I was with her that whole night. She wolfed out and she didn’t hurt me, she-”  
“Don’t, Sam. Don’t okay. We did what we had to. Even she understood that. It was only gonna be a matter of time.”  
Sam blocked Dean’s path.  
“At least give me until after the first transformation. I’ll tie you down, I’ll hold a gun on you, I’ll stay with you the whole night, Dean. I swear. I won’t let you hurt anyone.”  
Dean chewed on his lip and tossed back the dregs of his drink. He moved to get a refill, but Sam side-stepped in front of him again.  
“Dean?”  
“And what about Scott? What about that Derek guy? Who’s gonna take them down while you’re babysitting me?”  
Sam pushed his hair behind his ears and set his jaw.  
“The Stiles kid. He knows more than he’s saying.”  
“You can’t ask him to handle something like this.”  
“I’m just saying, maybe I can talk to him. Lay it on the line. I’m sure this is all new to McCall. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone. We’ll lock him down.”  
“And what if he doesn’t agree to it?”  
“I’ll talk to him.”  
Dean shook his head and ducked by Sam to fetch the whiskey from his bedside locker.  
“That still leaves the Hale guy. We need to take him down, Sam, before he gets the chance to sink his teeth into anyone else.”  
“We’ll find him.”  
Dean poured himself another drink and gulped it down in one. The alcohol did little to take the edge off his new physicality. He could hear Sam’s blood pulsing around his body, smell the sweat ripening on his skin under the starched shirt, and he wanted. He wanted to rub his face in Sam’s human smells and bite and lick. He’d read Dad’s journal again and again after Madison, tortured by the niggling thought that there might have been another way, if only they’d waited a few days more. If only they’d kept searching. They’d proven first-hand that killing the sire didn’t cure the lycan, so not all of the snippets John had collected over the years were accurate, but Dean was pretty sure the bit about the wolf acting on your latent desires was true. And that scared him more than dying. More than Hell.  
“I’m going out, Sam. I need some air.”  
Sam looked at him from under knitted brows.  
“You sure?”  
“Yeah. I feel fine. I’ll be okay. Why don’t you go and see if you can pump that Stiles kid. Find out what he’s not telling us. I’ll be back soon.”  
Sam retrieved his tie from the bed and slung it around his neck.  
“Okay, man. But if you feel anything weird, anything at all, you call me.” He shook his phone for emphasis.  
Dean nodded and waited for Sam’s footsteps to retreat and the Impala’s engine to roar into life before he slumped on the bed.  
This wasn’t the first time Dean had felt like monster. Not by a long chalk. He’d dealt his fair share of unspeakable violence under Alistair’s tutelage. He’d had tainted vampire blood surging in his veins. He’d almost sunk his fangs into Lisa. Into Ben. Unforgivable. But somehow worse was the amount of self-restraint it had taken not to push Sam, his younger brother, against a wall and drink him dry. He wanted to taste his brother’s essence, taste all the ways in which they were the same, feel their heartbeats merge, take his very life into himself. This wasn’t so very different. It wasn’t the wolf. It wasn’t the vampire’s kiss. The common denominator was Dean, and unless he found a way to end this or put as much distance between him and his brother as was physically possible before the full moon, it wasn’t just his life he’d forfeit. He’d lose Sam, not just in the sense that they’d be separated. He’d lose everything they were and everything they’d been to each other. If Sam found out just how messed up his big brother was, how sick in the head, every memory, every gesture, their bond –forged the moment Mom and Dad brought baby Sammy home from the hospital and laid him across Dean’s tiny lap– would be warped and twisted into something nasty and dark. Something with an ugly name. No, Dean would rather die alone. Would rather leave Sam alone.  
He tore off his suit and threw on jeans and a clean tee. He grabbed his jacket from where it hung on the back of the door and stepped outside. The air was fresh and the cold felt soothing on his fevered skin. He glanced furtively around to make sure he wasn’t observed before he started running, lengthening his stride, testing his new musculature and flexibility. Faster and faster he ran towards the wood until he reached the edge of it and there, concealed by the trees, he let fly with everything he had until the trunks and everything beyond them became a blur screaming past his ears.  
He came to a halt outside the Hale house. The soles of his feet burned and when he looked down, Dean realised he’d run all the way here barefoot. He was bleeding. The house looked different in the fading daylight, less imposing and kind of sad. Dean could see the extent of the damage and he closed his eyes as phantom wails and choking noises filled his head.  
He waited for the voices to ebb and then he called out,  
“Derek! Derek Hale!”

 


	2. The Bite That Binds

 

 

“Bobby? Bobby it’s me. The signal is lousy here – can you hear me?”  
Sam waved the phone around and wound down the window, although he knew neither thing would make any difference.  
“Sam? Yeah, I was just about to call you.”  
“You found anything?”  
“Nothing all that useful, son. I’m sorry.”  
Sam blew out a breath.  
“He’s agreed to wait ‘til after tomorrow night. I’m gonna keep him on lock-down. See how bad it gets.”  
“Sam!”  
“I got this, Bobby. If it gets too much…I know what I have to do.”  
“Yeah, maybe. But if comes to that – you think you’re gonna be able to go through with it?”  
“We’ll see, won’t we.”  
“Sam, don’t be an idjit!”  
“Keep looking, Bobby. Call the Campbells if you have to. This is Dean we’re talking about.”  
“You think I don’t know that, boy?”  
Sam hung up and blinked frustrated tears out of his eyes.

The Stilinski place was neat and well kept. Sam pulled up on the driveway and cut the engine. He got out of the car and walked up to the front door. There were lights on inside, and the sun was already starting to sink down towards the horizon. A curtain twitched in the upper floor window, and the muffled sound of the kid bundling down the stairs leaked through the door before it flew open.  
“What’re you doing here?” Stiles said, panic colouring his voice. “My dad’ll be back any minute.”  
Sam’s mouth tugged into a quizzical, upside down smile.  
“And that’s a problem because..?”  
Stiles sighed and stood to one side. Sam stepped into the hall.  
“Dude, I told you everything this afternoon.”  
Sam huffed a laugh.  
“If that’s true, why are you so keen to get rid of me before your dad shows up?”  
“Look, he’s just trying to do his job, okay? He doesn’t need the extra stress.”  
Sam looked past the kid’s shoulder into the kitchen.  
“Your mom in?”  
Stiles looked at the floor and his shoulder rounded in towards his chest. Sam didn’t need to ask.  
“I’m sorry.”  
“Sure. Thanks.”  
“I lost my mom too, when I was really little.”  
Stiles looked up.  
“Kind of felt responsible, you know? Still do.”  
Stiles nodded, a minute movement of his head, and gestured towards the kitchen.  
“Can I get you a drink or something? My dad probably has some whiskey somewhere.”  
“Coffee would be great,” Sam said, taking a seat at the table. “I’m still on duty.”  
Stiles grinned then, and turned to fetch mugs from a cupboard.  
“Yeah, about that. You guys really FBI?”  
“You guys really told us everything about the night you found Laura Hale?”  
“Touche. Milk? Sugar?”  
“Yeah, thanks. Look, Stiles. I’m not here to make things harder for you or your dad. I just need to know what’s going on in Beacon Hills. People are dying, and you and I both know there haven’t been wolves in this county for sixty years. So d’you wanna tell me how come your severely asthmatic BFF is suddenly a star athlete? ”  
The kid looked like he was fit to burst, desperate to unburden himself, but his fierce loyalty to McCall was holding his tongue. Sam couldn’t help but like the kid.  
“Stiles. I wanna help Scott. Me and my partner, this is kind of what we do. Nothing you can tell me is going to sound crazy to us. Trust me.”  
Stiles poured boiling water into both mugs and brought them to the table. He sat down, worrying at his lower lip with his teeth, and then seemingly reaching a decision.  
“Scott was bitten. When my dad caught us that first night, Scott ran and he stumbled over the body. Half of the body. Then he was attacked. He says by a wolf. But that’s impossible, right?”  
Sam took a sip of his coffee. He put his cup down and spread his hands on the table.  
“So what’s your theory?”  
The kid visibly brightened. He sat up in his chair, his hands moving restlessly on the table-top as he spoke.  
“Well, I did some research, and like you say, there hasn’t been a significant wild wolf population in California since the nineteen twenties. So at first we thought he must have been mistaken, you know. It was a dog or even a mountain lion strayed out of its usual ‘hood. But then it healed. The bite healed without a trace, and his asthma cleared up overnight. Scott starts saying he can hear and smell things he shouldn’t be able to hear and smell. It’s creepy. To be honest he’s kind of giving me a complex about…personal hygiene, but anyway...then he started to get, you know, more aggressive. More confident. His eyes get this weird, yellow tinge and now it’s nearly the full moon, it’s like he can’t control it. So I started looking into lycanthropy. I know it sounds nuts but all the symptoms fit. Anything that gets his pulse up can make him wolf out.”  
“Like lacrosse?”  
“Exactly. He’s got these lightning reflexes and super strength now, hence Coach Finkman’s sudden interest. He nearly put two guys in the hospital last practice.”  
Sam raised an eyebrow.  
“B-b-but that’s not him, Agent Ehart,” he stammered. “Scott’s a good guy. He wouldn’t hurt anyone. Not on purpose. You have to believe that.”  
The kid looked so earnest that Sam wanted to hug him.  
“Call me Sam. I get that, Stiles. I do. But we need to make sure he doesn’t while we figure this out, okay?”  
Stiles nodded miserably.  
“You care about Scott, right?”  
Stiles’ eyes shifted focus, becoming distant, like he was remembering something.  
“More than he could know,” he said quietly.  
“So help me keep him safe. We need to keep him restrained tomorrow night. If he won’t agree to it, we may need to use force.”  
“Tell me when and where and I’ll make sure he’s there.”

Dean and Derek stood in the ruins of the Hale house and glared at one another. Dead had the distinct impression of looking in a mirror, and it made his stomach clench in revulsion.  
“What are you doing in my house?”  
Dean felt Derek’s voice as a buzz in his marrow.  
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. I’d worry about the fact I’m about to rip you apart and then burn the little pieces of you to cinders. See, hunting supernatural pieces of shit like you is my family business, and dying here like rats in a trap is yours, apparently.”  
Derek flinched.  
“You know nothing about my family.”  
“I know they’re all dead. All except you. What do you make of that?”  
Derek’s eyes narrowed.  
“You think I killed them?”  
“I think you wolfed out. You couldn’t control yourself. You chowed down on the rest of the Hale family unit one night, and you set that fire to cover your tracks.”  
“Good theory. And Laura?”  
“Maybe she got away. Maybe you realised she wasn’t as dead as you thought she was and you came back to finished mopping up your mess. Only you got sprung this time.”  
Derek laughed.  
“Wow. You sure have got it all figured out, haven’t you. Except I wasn’t bitten. I was born with the gift. My entire family had it. Laura was my pack Alpha.”  
Dean blinked. His mouth opened and closed a few times.  
“The dead girl...she was a-”  
“Werewolf. Yeah. And so are you. I can smell the wolf in you. So how exactly are you gonna reconcile your family business with your new condition?”  
“Figured I’d start by ganking the sonofabitch that bit me.”  
“And I suppose you have that all figured out too.”  
Derek stalked towards him and Dean backed up. The air smelt like ozone.  
“Well, Laura was already long dead when we arrived in town, so it sure as shit wasn’t her.”  
“The McCall kid?”  
“He’s a fledgling like me. He doesn’t even really know what he is yet.”  
Derek crowded Dean up against the wall. Dean felt that hideous tingling under his nails again. Derek’s proximity sent the blood thundering around his system. He felt his frame trying to reform, his stomach heaving, his skin crawling. It felt both alien and familiar, satisfying and gross, like slowly crushing a fat, wriggling spider under your bare foot. He couldn’t deny there was an undercurrent of pleasure to it. The urge to sink his teeth into the other man’s succulent throat was so keen, it made his gums itch. His dick fattened in his briefs.  
“I guess that only leaves you then,” he spat through clenched teeth. Derek’s face was inches from his own. His warm breath tickled Dean’s lips.  
“It wasn’t me,” the other man said. “Like I said, Laura was my alpha. Someone killed her and took her place. I’m an omega. A wolf with no pack. Only an alpha can give the gift of the bite. If it doesn’t kill you…well you know the rest.”  
Dean bunched the front of Derek’s shirt in his fists.  
“How do I stop it?”  
“Stop it?”  
“Cure it. Me, the McCall kid. Tell me how to break the curse or so help me I’ll rip your throat out. I’m dying to do it. Just give me the excuse.”  
Derek shook his head, a smile playing on his mouth.  
“There is no cure. Not that I know of. But why would you want to be cured?”  
“What?”  
“Why would you want to be human when you could have this? You’re faster, stronger, better in every way now. I know the bloodlust is hard at first, but you can learn to control it. Imagine what sort of hunter you’ll be. Nothing will be a match for you.”  
Dean swallowed thickly.  
“Nuh-uh. I’m not like you. I won’t live like this.”  
Derek placed his palms flat against the wall either side of Dean’s head.  
“We’re not so different. We’re both alone. We both carry a burden. Secrets we can’t tell anyone. You have this sadness inside you. Guilt. It seeps out of every pore. You understand loss.”  
“I’m not alone,” Dean said.  
“You sure about that?”  
Derek leant in and sniffed at Dean’s neck. Dean shuddered. He heard the screams again, glass shattering, felt the Hale family overheads, stumbling blindly through the house. Noxious smoke seemed to fill the air, making it hard to breathe. He felt a pang of pity for this creature. He saw his mother’s face, mouth stretched in an agonised scream. He thought of Jessica, blood dripping from her slashed stomach onto Sam’s forehead. The flames licked at his fingers and he knew that part of him, some depraved, monstrous fragment buried deep in his soul, was glad she had burned. It wished he could have seen her wreathed in fire, her cute nightdress melting into her skin, the satiny fabric wicking the inferno through her body. He hated her for keeping Sam away. He hated her for being able to give his brother the life he couldn’t. Sam would have stayed if she hadn’t died. Sam would never have chosen him.  
“No,” he whispered, tears streaming down his face. “We’re not so different.”  
Derek nuzzled his neck and Dean felt razor-edged teeth scrape his throat. His breath came in harsh pants, and he willed his hand to reach for the knife he had tucked in his belt, but he was no longer in command of his own body. He was a slave to the wolf inside. His hips tilted up and he rubbed his aching cock along the seam of his jeans. Get the knife. Get his blood. His own voice sounded inside his head, chanting those six words like a mantra. But then Derek’s tongue snaked out and licked a drop of sweat from his jaw. It was too long and hot, supple and rough. Dean felt a pulse of slick soak his briefs.  
“Yeah,” Derek growled into his ear. “I can smell you. You want it.”  
Dean met his eyes, electric blue and feral. Long claws dug into his waist.  
He was more animal than human now. A monster.  
Dean shoved Derek back as hard as he could and fled the house and its ghosts.

“Dean?”  
Sam pushed the bathroom door open but his brother was nowhere to be found. His panic tasted metallic and sweet on his tongue. He rummaged for his phone and hit Dean’s number on speed dial. His heart sank when he heard a buzz, and a tinny version of Enter Sandman started up. Dean had left his phone on the table.  
Sam ran straight back out into the parking lot and jumped in the Impala. He muttered under his breath as he drove, calling Dean’s all the names under the sun, not allowing his mind to dwell on the possibility that his brother had transformed, or worse, taken his fate into his own hands while he was still more or less human.  
But then he saw him, a shadow by the side of the road. Sam slammed on the breaks and wrenched the wheel over to the right. He opened the door and got out.  
“Dean! What are you doing out here? I was worried sick!”  
Dean turned slowly, dazed.  
“Sam?”  
“Dean, what’s going on?”  
Sam took a step towards his brother, looking for any signs of injury or obvious lupine traits.  
“I went looking for him. For Derek. I wanted his blood.”  
Sam put his hand out to clasp Dean’s shoulder and steered him towards the passenger door.  
“Did you get it?”  
“No.”  
“We’ll get it. We’ll get it, Dean. There’s still time.”  
“Doesn’t matter, Sammy.”  
“What’re you talking about?”  
“It’s not him. He’s not the wolf that bit me.”  
“How do you know?”  
Sam put his hand on Dean’s head to protect it as he pushed him down into the seat, then he walked around and slid into the driver’s side.  
“He told me. He’s not an alpha. Only alpha’s can pass on the bite.”  
“Like Crowley’s alphas?”  
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think he meant each pack has a leader they call the alpha.”  
“And you believe him?”  
“Yeah. I mean, it’s not just his word. I’m getting stronger, Sam. My senses are sharpening. I knew it wasn’t him once I saw him. I felt it. He’s not the one.”  
Sam sighed.  
“He have any ideas who it was?”  
“No, but whoever it was killed his sister too.”  
“So you think he’ll help us track this alpha down?”  
“Maybe.”  
Dean looked preoccupied and dejected.  
“Okay, let’s get you back to the room and cleaned up. You’re bleeding.”  
“It doesn’t matter, Sam.”  
“Of course it matters, Dean!” Sam’s exasperation made his voice louder than he intended. He softened it. “Look, I know this is bad. I know that. But tomorrow, one way or the other, it’s coming to a head. And we’ll deal with it, Dean. Just like always. You and me. Okay?”  
Dean licked his lips and scrubbed a hand through his hair.  
“Yeah,” he agreed. “yeah, okay.”

Sam woke to a strange, snuffling noise and something tickling his feet. He drew his knees up quickly, hiding his exposed toes under the covers.  
“Dude?”  
Dean stared up at him from the foot of the bed.  
“Were you…were you sniffing my feet?”  
Dean stood up and flung himself back on his own bed.  
“Jesus. It’s getting worse. I don’t know what’s happening.”  
“Well, that’s not creepy at all!”  
“Shut up, Sam! I told you. I can’t control it. It’s like I’m hypnotised half the time. If you can’t deal with a little foot-sniffing I suggest you get your gun and we’ll finish this now.”  
Sam sat up, fully awake now. He flipped on the lamp.  
“Hey, man. Don’t, all right? I was just teasing. I’m sorry.”  
He looked over at his brother. He was a mess, his hair stuck up in awkward tufts and his t-shirt pulled off his shoulder. Sam’s gaze slipped down to where Dean’s hand was adjusting his obvious erection. He felt a flush settle on his cheeks and averted his eyes quickly.  
“Do you, uh, do you need me to do something?”  
“Like what, Sam? Pet behind my ears? Take me for a drive to the park and throw sticks? I guess it’s a shame for you that I’m a guy and your brother, otherwise you’d be able to use your tried and tested werewolf distraction method all night long.”  
Sam fought the urge to punch his brother in the face.  
“Low blow, Dean. I’m just trying to help.”  
Dean looked away. His shoulders slumped.  
“Well, you can help by tying me down and putting a bullet between my eyes if I try and move from this bed.”  
“Fine!”  
Sam was just pissed enough to acquiesce. If Dean wanted to spend the night contorted and uncomfortable, then so be it.  
He threw back the covers and went to retrieve a length of rope from the Impala’s trunk. Dean was kneeling on the bed looking slightly contrite when he returned, but Sam was in no mood to back down. He approached the bed and pushed Dean back, so that he sprawled on the bed, his legs trapped underneath him.  
“Hey –careful!”  
Sam grabbed his right wrist and tugged it hard towards him.  
“What’s it to be, Dean? You wanna sleep on your back or your side?”  
Dean’s mouth gaped.  
“What?”  
“Did I stutter? You want me to tie your arms and legs to the legs of the bed, or should I hog-tie you?”  
Dean blinked rapidly and Sam saw it dawn on his brother that he wasn’t playing around.  
“Um…on my back, I guess, would be better.”  
“Okay then.”  
Sam made a lasso and looped it around Dean’s right wrist. He watched Dean’s eyes as he jerked the end and the lariat pulled tight, the rope biting into his brother’s skin hard enough to leave a burn mark. Dean drew in a sharp breath, but didn’t make a sound otherwise. Sam tied the end of the rope off around the leg of the bed and reached under Dean to grab his right foot. His brother let out a surprised squeak as he goosed him and Sam allowed himself a tiny, satisfied smile. A warm tingling was spreading out from his gut, something like nervous anticipation. He ran the rope around Dean’s ankle a couple of times, and then around the nearest bed leg before snapping it tight. Dean’s leg jerked, and he let out a small groan.  
Dean unfolded his other leg out from under his butt, weirdly malleable now. He watched Sam work, his eyes heavy-lidded and glazed. Sam secured his left foot, wrapping the rope around Dean’s other ankle and pausing just a little too long before tugging it snug against Dean’s flesh. Dean’s eyes fell shut as Sam snatched his leg straight with a vicious pull. He snaked the rope around the bed and then ran it up to Dean’s left wrist, pinioning it to the last bed leg. Once he was done, Dean lay staked out and vulnerable-looking. Sam had discovered him bound countless times before, but this was different. His t-shirt had ridden up to show a sliver of taut stomach, and the outline of his swollen cock was pressing out his underwear. Sam felt a pang of queasy excitement as he realised his rough-handed treatment had done nothing to dampen the wolf’s urges. If anything, it seemed to have made his brother even harder. He forced himself to look away and tested the ropes.  
“That should hold. There’s still hours to go before the full moon, but this should stop you wandering.”  
“Thanks,” Dean said, his voice raspy.  
Sam got back into his own bed and flipped out the light before Dean could see the flush spreading up from his neck, but he lay for a long time, quaking in the dark, listening to Dean breathing and squirming on the other bed.

Dean insisted on remaining tied the next morning. Sam let him up so he could relieve his bladder and have a wash. He swiped some stale pastries and muffins from the continental breakfast and took them back to the room, and they washed them down with bad coffee. Then he cuffed Dean and tied him to a dining chair while he went to the front office to collect Bobby’s parcel. Sam doubted the cheap motel furniture would hold up if Dean did hulk out, but it calmed his brother anyway.  
The box the old hunter had sent contained lots of little clear plastic baggies, filled with dried leaves and flowers, all clearly labelled, and a hand-written note with details of what each was to be used for.  
Dean watched TV while Sam spent the next couple of hours filling shot gun shells with a mixture of salt, wolfsbane and garlic. They didn’t talk, Sam deliberately concentrating on the task at hand, not wanting to think that one of these bullets might end up burying itself into his brother’s flesh imminently.  
Once he’d packed a few dozen rounds, he carefully tidied and wiped down the kitchen table and stowed all of the kit back in the Imapala’s trunk, feeling his brother’s eyes on him the whole time.  
“Dean,” he said. “I have to go to the hardware store in town and take some things to Stiles. You gonna be okay for a couple hours?”  
Dean’s eyes appeared jaundiced and he was raking restlessly at the arms of the chair with his fingers. Sam would have to be quick.  
“Yeah. I’ll be okay. Just do what you have to do.”  
Sam placed Dean’s cell in one bound hand, and the TV remote in the other. He stopped short of asking him if he needed to pee before he left, but left a juice box on the table so that Dean could leave over and reach the straw with his mouth if he got thirsty.  
He was ten minutes early as he pulled up over the road from Scott McCall’s house, and was just in time to see an attractive dark-haired woman in a nurses’ uniform coming through the front door. Sam was pretty sure if Dean had been here, he would have referred to her as a MILF. She got into a beaten up black compact with a missing wing mirror and drove off. A few minutes later, Stiles’ ancient, pale blue Jeep rounded the corner. Sam got out of the Impala and waved.  
“Hey,” Stiles said, jumping out of the Jeep. “What happened to the monkey suit?”  
Sam looked down at his plaid shirt and jeans.  
“Dressing down. Scott home?”  
“Yeah, he’s waiting for us. Where’s your partner?”  
“He’s uh, following up on other leads.”  
“You got the stuff?”  
Sam opened the trunk and took out a hold-all. The chains inside made a chinking sound as he hoisted up.  
“Yup, all set.”  
They rang the bell, and Scott answered, looking more than a little sheepish. He nodded in greeting and stood aside to let them in. Sam noticed a certain frostiness which hadn’t been between them the other day. Scott led them up to his room and sat down on his bed.  
“So, how do you wanna do this?”  
“Maybe we should forget the chains. Cut to the chase and just shoot you full of silver, you know, just in case you can’t help yourself.”  
“Oh my God, Stiles, I told you I’m sorry, but she kissed me!”  
“Screw you, man. You know how I feel about her.”  
“Whoa!” Sam had his hands up. “Kissed who? What’s going on?”  
“My best buddy, Scott here, kissed Lydia Martin.”  
“Who’s Lydia Martin?” Sam asked.  
“She’s a red-headed goddess and I’m in love with her,” Stiles said. “And this dick, was supposed to ask her how she felt about me, and ended up playing tonsil hockey with her himself, even though he’s supposedly consumed with undying passion for Allison Argent.”  
“I am!” Scott piped up.  
Sam rolled his eyes as he remembered the girl on the bleachers. He felt for Stiles though. It was like Rachel Nave all over again.  
“Okay look, Stiles, Scott can’t be held accountable at the moment. You know that right? And Scott? Still a dick move. Now we need to get you chained up before sun down, so let’s just get on with it, shall we?”  
Sam and Stiles set about securing Scott, wrapping him head to toe in thick chains and fastening him to the radiator in his bedroom. Sam knew it probably wouldn’t stop him if it came down to it, but it would slow him down, and Stiles was under strict instructions to stay with him all night, the shotgun trained on him at all times.  
When Scott was settled, Sam took Stiles aside and showed him how to fire and reload the shotgun.  
“It’s a last resort, obviously. But if he comes at you, you shoot, Stiles. I know he’s your friend, but you can’t help him if you’re dead.”  
The boy nodded, but there was fear in his eyes, and something which Sam recognised. Love. The sort of unconditional love which would paralyse his trigger finger when the time came.  
“I have to get back to my bro…to my partner. But you call me if anything happens, okay?”  
“Yeah, okay. I got it.”

 


	3. The Bite That Binds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dub con wolf sex ahead, folks. Fair warning ;)

 

 

The sun was low and the sky deepening to a bruised purple-grey when Sam arrived back at the motel. Dean was sitting where he’d left him, but his fingers were bleeding where he’d scratched deep grooves in the arm of the chair. His skin glistened with sweat and his eyes bored holes through Sam, tracking him as he moved around the room. Dogging him.  
“It’s coming, Sammy. I can’t hold it.”  
Sam untied the ropes binding his brother to the chair and helped him to his feet, and uncuffed his wrists.  
“Come on, Dean. Stretch your legs, go to the bathroom. I brought you burgers. You should eat and then we’ll get you settled for the night. It’s just tonight then we have a whole month to figure this out.”  
Dean winced as Sam rubbed his chafed forearms, trying to get blood circulating to his hands which were cold and clammy while the rest of him was hot to the touch. He stumbled into the bathroom and locked the door. Sam unpacked their burgers and fries and opened a couple of beers, popping the caps off on the edge of the table.  
Minutes ticked by. It was silent in the bathroom, and when Sam looked out of the window he could see the tree tops silhouetted against the dusky sky. He checked his phone. Nothing from Bobby or Stiles. The moon must be visible by now. He strode over and knocked on the bathroom door.  
“Dean? You all right? Your food’s getting cold.”  
There was a pause before Dean opened the door. His hair was wet and dripping onto his collar. His expression was pinched.  
“I don’t think I can eat, Sam.”  
“C’mon. Since when does Dean Winchester turn down a juicy burger?”  
He tugged lightly on Dean’s sleeve and dragged him towards the table. Dean downed his beer and went straight for another. He picked at his food, pulling the patty out of its bun and discarding the bread. He barely touched the fries. More than once, Sam took a long swallow of his beer, only to find Dean staring at his throat with a frightening intensity.  
When they had finished eating, Dean let Sam lead him to the bed and cuffed his wrists and ankles together. Dean tested the cuffs.  
“I hope you got something stronger than this, Sam.”  
Sam waggled his eyebrows and retrieved a canvas bag from under the table. He unzipped it and pulled out a length of heavy chain and several padlocks. He grinned and Dean scowled.  
Sam wound the length of chain around his brother, stuffing cushions between his back and the hard metal so that Dean would be able to lie down in relative comfort. When the final padlock had snicked into place, he positioned another pillow under Dean’s head.  
“There,” he said. “All set.”  
“Now what?”  
“Now we wait for sun-up.”  
The moon had been glaring bright for hours when it finally happened.  
Dean’s body bowed as the wolf seized him. He cried out and Sam’s hand tightened around his silver-loaded pistol.  
“Dean?”  
His brother’s head thrashed from side to side as he struggled in his restraints. Sam got up and stepped closer to the bed.  
“Dean?”  
Dean’s gaze snapped to Sam. He flicked his tongue over one elongated canine and grinned.  
“Holy shit,” Sam breathed.  
Dean’s irises glowed an unnatural shade of yellow-green, a fluorescent version of his own unusual eye-colour. His jaw worked as new teeth pushed through the gum, crowding out some of his own which dropped and skittered across the carpet. Sam watched in horror as Dean’s face contorted and the area between his upper lip and nose started to pulse and swell. His lower jaw jutted out, scattering a few more teeth. New growth spread down from his hairline, darkened the hollows under his cheekbones.  
Sam’s gaze roved down to where Dean’s fingers were flexing, thick talons forcing his human fingernails off. Dean let out a low moan and Sam gagged a little as his toenails began to fall onto the bedspread.  
“Sam!” It was a guttural sound. A human voice forced through an animal’s throat and lips. “Do it. Shoot.”  
Sam stood, rooted to the spot, fascinated and repulsed and weirdly excited. He’d lowered the gun unthinkingly, and now he tightened his grip again.  
“No, Dean. You’re okay. I got you. Just take it easy.”  
Dean howled then, and Sam sprung forward to clamp a hand over his muzzle.  
“Sssh! Dean please. You need to be quiet. No one can know you’re in here.”  
A long, rasping tongue wormed its way between his knuckles and Sam drew his hand back, tingling. The same dirty rush of pleasure he’d felt at the Hale house made his knees feel a little weak.  
Dean’s body was reforming. The chains slackened and tightened as Dean’s new musculature tested them. Sam’s eyes widened as he saw the links starting to ease open in places.  
“Dean no! You have to stay here!” He swallowed dryly, his pulse racing. He’d fucked up. He’d underestimated the size Dean would reach in wolf form. Thick, gleaming fur covered almost every inch of Dean’s skin now. His face was distorted, more wolf than human. Hungry eyes tracked his every move. Sam brought the gun up with one trembling arm and fumbled in his pocket for his cell with the other. He scrolled through his call history and punched Stiles’ number. Stiles picked up on the second ring. He sounded winded.  
“Sam? He’s gone. I’m sorry –I couldn’t stop him.”  
“It’s okay. It’s my fault. It was a bad plan.”  
“You at the motel?”  
“Yeah.”  
“I’m coming over.”  
“No! Stiles, stay where you are. Stay indoors, you hear me?”  
But Stiles had already hung up.  
“Shit! Fuck!”  
Sam stuffed his phone back in his pocket and looked up just in time to see Dean bounding toward him. He pinned Sam to the door, hot tongue lapping his throat like an excited dog, huge and terrifying, the threat of two inch long teeth and real power behind the soft, slick muscle.  
“Dean! Stop. Don’t do this. It’s me!”  
The wolf pulled back. It stood taller than Dean on bulky legs, upright, although his arms were now long enough to run on, fingertips reaching down past its bent knees. Sam looked into those luminous eyes and understood how Dean must have felt as Lucifer used Sam’s fist to beat him to a pulp.  
“It’s okay, Dean. You’re okay. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. Take it easy.”  
Sam let the gun drop to the floor with a dull thud. The wolf’s muzzle twitched and it licked its chops.  
“Come on, Dean. It’s okay. We’re okay.”  
Sam reached out and ran his hand through the wolf’s plush coat. Dean closed in again and huffed hot, moist breath on Sam’s face. The wolf pawed at his side, shredding his soft cotton tee and leaving deep scratches down his sides. Sam squirmed and Dean nuzzled under his jaw, teeth snapping and scraping.  
“Easy, Dean. Easy!”  
Sam turned his head away and that wily tongue was on him again, the tip catching at his lips. Sam screwed his eyes up tight and pursed his lips and willed Dean to back down. But the wolf’s snout buried itself in his right armpit, snuffling and licking. Its cold, wet nose found its way under Sam’s shirt, prodding his navel, swirling its tongue around inside. Sam’s cock began to take an interest.  
“Dean. Stop. That’s…you can’t do that. It’s me. Sam.”  
The wolf’s tongue laved a stripe along the soft line of hair which trailed from under Sam’s belly-button to below his waistband. Its claws worked again, slashing at Sam’s jeans, slicing off the button of his fly and leaving deep welts where they caught his skin.  
“Dean! What’re you-”  
Sam’s jeans sagged to the floor as Dean wrenched them down over his hips and sank to all fours, rootling around Sam’s junk through his boxers. The lupine nose nudged at his hardening dick, making Sam fold in on himself and clamp his thighs together.  
“No Dean!”  
Sam tapped him on the muzzle and the wolf looked up, lips curling in warning. Sam forced himself to relax and Dean shoved his nose between Sam’s legs, so that Sam’s balls rubbed all over his brother’s face. Despite his fear, Sam was almost fully hard, a mixture of adrenaline and something Sam couldn’t even begin to analyse right now, and he was both mortified and thrilled to realise Dean was rifling in the slit in his underwear, leaving a gap for his stiffening cock to poke through. The first touch of that searing hot tongue to the silken head of it made Sam moan and roll his head back again the door.  
“Dean. We can’t. You don’t know what you’re doing.”  
The wolf stopped, fixed Sam with a predatory glare and used one claw to slit Sam’s boxers in a measure and calculating manner, pulling the fabric away with his teeth and leaving Sam wearing only shreds of his t-shirts and his jeans pooled around his feet.  
“Okay, Sam whispered. Maybe you do know what you’re doing.”  
The wolf’s tongue got to work, bathing his aching shaft, lapping the slick clear fluid welling in his slit, and rolling around his balls. Sam kicked his foot out of the leg of his jeans and widened his stance, and Dean’s wolf tongue flicked further back, gliding over his asshole.  
“This is fucked up, Dean. Even for us.”  
It had been years since Dean could legitimately overpower Sam. It used to be a regular thing, Sam provoking his brother until he knocked him down and sat on his chest, stealing his breath and digging his bony fingers into the sensitive spots along Sam’s flank. Sam had tried to put away childish things. He’d told himself he wanted out. No more monsters. No more dreams of fire. No more broken bones and blood and vendettas. No more early morning beastings from Dad. No more living in Dean’s pockets. Sleeping in a fug of his stale sweat and farts and wet dreams. But against this motel door, with his wolf-brother licking the precome sliding down his throbbing cock, he had to admit there might just have been something a little unhealthy about the way he’d ended up on his back under Dean again, within a few seconds of him breaking into his apartment.  
“Oh fuck, Dean. I’m sorry,” he whimpered as the wolf’s tongue coaxed out another pulse of slippery fluid.  
It stopped and looked up at Sam, panting, before drawing itself up to full height again.  
Sam’s heart jack-hammered against his ribs.  
The wolf’s huge hand gripped his shoulder, tips of its claws drawing blood, and it forced Sam over to the bed, throwing him down on his belly. The breath rushed out of Sam’s lungs as he hit the mattress, then the wolf’s tongue was on him again, working deeper and deeper inside his tight hole.  
Blood oozed from myriad cuts on his flesh, and he felt sick, but the bizarre tumult of feelings churning in his stomach did nothing to douse his arousal as his brother’s pointed teeth snagged the delicate skin of his rim. Sam knew what was coming. He’d seen enough nature documentaries and even a grainy VHS copy of something called Animal Farm which Dean had brought home from one of the rougher schools they’d been briefly enrolled in, and they’d watched all of thirty seconds from between their fingers before Dean lost his nerve, ejected it and hid it in the bottom of his duffel until he could return it to its questionable owner the following day.  
But it was still a shock when Sam felt the warm weight of his brother on his back, fur sliding against the ripped flesh of his back, teeth lightly nipping the scruff of his neck. Even more so when the wolf’s hips hunched and its hard wet cock jabbed at the back of his thighs. Sam groaned and pushed his ass up, giving Dean easier access. The wolf thrust again and again until the tip found its mark and slid home. Sam had never done this, never even considered he might want this. Not from a man and certainly not from a beast. But this was Dean, and if Sam had ever truly believed anything was off limits as far as his big brother was concerned, he’d been lying to himself.  
Sam had no time to adjust to the strange sensation of have that hot, swollen flesh pushed inside him before the wolf set to fucking him at a brutal pace. It hurt. Sam’s large frame jounced as Dean shoved in over and over. It was wetter than Sam expected, a constant trickle of something warm easing the way. Sam hoped it wasn’t just blood.  
“Dean,” Sam groaned. “Oh God, Dean. This…this…ah! This is so messed up.”  
The wolf yipped quietly and bit his shoulder. Sam felt its huge cock growing with each frantic thrust, fattening, and Sam began to panic until eventually something punched through the rim of his hole, making him cry out, and held Dean fast inside, tying them together. Dean slumped onto Sam’s back and his hips stilled. Sam felt hot gusts of wet breath on his nape and something thick pulsing inside him. The sensation made him want to pee, and to push Dean out, but his cock was hard and urgent underneath him. He rocked it gently into the coverlet as spurt after spurt of watery come added to the deliciously strange pressure in his ass. He was stuffed full, lying helpless under his monstrous brother, stuck fast until the wolf was satisfied. Sam reached tentatively behind him and scritched his fingers through his brother’s fur. He felt that hot tongue in ear and his balls pulled up tight against his body for a long moment just before he came all over the bed. It seemed to last for minutes, all those secret places inside him being pressed by Dean’s knot, milking every last drop of cream from his sore, spent cock.  
“Sammy?”  
Dean’s cock popped free of his hole and slipped out, a gush of hot, watery fluid following in its wake.  
Sam turned to see his brother –his human brother- staring at him wide-eyed, his face stricken.  
“Sam. I didn’t…I don’t…Oh shit, Sam. I am so sorry.”  
Dean backed away and got shakily to his feet, staring down at the blood and semen streaking his body. His hands were shaking, perfect pinkish nails in place of the claws. They were so clean, no crescents of dirt trapped underneath them. It looked like Dean had been for a manicure and that incongruous thought made Sam laugh. Once he’d started, he couldn’t stop, hysteria setting in, and Dean shot him a puzzled and horrified look before pulling on some sweat, grabbing Sam’s shotgun and taking off.  
Sam lay in a stupor for a moment before he realised that he was bloodied and naked, the door was open, Dean was gone and that was the sound of Stile’s engine approaching he could hear. He sprung up, wincing as a jolt of pain from his abused ass shot up his spine, and slammed the door shut. He quickly cleaned himself up as best he could with toilet tissues, found a clean pair of sweats and a hoodie and flung them on before sitting gingerly on the edge of the bed to put his boots on.  
There came a loud knocking at the door.  
“Yeah, coming! Hold up!”  
Sam quickly laced his boots and stuffed the bottoms of the sweats inside.  
Stiles’ wan face peered at him as he opened the door.  
“I can hear him!” Stiles said. “Howling – in the woods! It’s gotta be Scott and Derek!”  
Sam nodded tightly.  
“Hang on. Let me get my gun.”  
He retreated back inside before he remembered Dean had taken the shotgun loaded with wolfsbane-laced ammo. He cursed under his breath and snatched up what was left from Bobby’s parcel and the Impala’s keys.  
Stiles watched him open the trunk and whistled.  
“Holy fuck! That shit doesn’t look like FBI standard issue to me.”  
“Did you bring the gun I left you?”  
“It’s in the Jeep.”  
“Good, get it.”  
Stiles ran to the Jeep and returned with the shotgun while Sam tucked various knives and guns about his person. He picked up a machete, tested the weight of it in his hand, and chucked it onto the back seat.  
“Come on.”  
Stiles slid into the passenger seat.  
“Hey man,” he said once they’d been driving for a few minutes. “You okay? You look pretty banged up.”  
“Yeah. Yeah. I’m fine.”  
Sam’s ass throbbed and his bones ached as the Impala bumped over the uneven road, but he kept his face impassive.  
A plaintive howl rose above the purr of the Chevy’s engine and Sam stamped on the gas pedal.  
“It’s coming from the direction of Derek’s house. Figures.”  
“Dean…I mean Agent Livgren has reason to believe Derek isn’t the alpha werewolf that bit your friend.”  
“How would he know that? And you can drop the Agent Livgren and Agent Ehart bullshit. My dad listens to Kansas when he drinks.”  
Sam grinned in spite of everything.  
“Okay Stiles. I’m gonna level with you. We’re not FBI.”  
“No shit, Sherlock.”  
“Dean’s my brother. We’re hunters. We hunt supernatural things. Under the radar. Unofficially.”  
“So it is like the X-Files?”  
“Yeah, except we’re not attached to the bureau at all. We just do this.”  
“Do you get paid?”  
“Nope.”  
“Then why do you do it?”  
Sam thought about for a while then shrugged.  
“Somebody has to.”  
Stiles seemed satisfied with that.  
“So, your brother. He’s like Scott now?”  
“Yeah.”  
“And he did that to you?”  
Sam shuddered as Stiles touched a cool finger to a gouge on his neck.  
“He doesn’t know what he’s doing. It’s the wolf.”  
“I thought Scott would hurt me. He wanted to. He looked like he wanted to rip my throat out. But I kept saying his name over and over and finally he ran straight past me.”  
Sam held his silence.  
“He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he hurt someone, Sam. I know him. He just wouldn’t.”  
Sam licked his suddenly dry lips.  
“I know. We’ll find them. It’ll be okay.”  
“Yeah, I know, I just…it’s…it just seems like someone up there’s got it in for me, y’know? I can’t lose him, Sam. I can’t.”  
Tears needled behind Sam’s eyes as the kid’s voice broke.  
“Hey,” he said when he could trust his own voice not to crack. “A great man once said, If you’re going through Hell, keep going. It’s all any of us can do, man. And trust me, you’re doing real good.”  
“Keep going,” Stiles repeated. “I like that.” He turned his head and stared out of the window.

Dean crouched on the cellar floor, the butt of the shotgun resting on the floor between his naked feet, the business end jammed under his chin. The metallic tang of Sam’s blood still filled his mouth and nostrils. He could still feel the tight clutch of his brother’s ass around the wolf’s cock. He should have left. He should have disappeared the moment he realised what he was. The wolf had trampled all his inhibitions under a giant paw. The gossamer layers which had shrouded his filthy secret for all these years had been shredded by its claws and teeth. Dean dearly wished the alpha had cracked his ribs open and eaten out his heart that night.  
Oh, it had opened him up all right, slit him from belly to throat, left his heart exposed and raw and bleeding. But it had kept him alive to witness his own subsequent evisceration.  
To think Derek had swayed him. Had him half believing he’d be able to manage this, like he had type two fucking diabetes or something.  
And now he’d lost Sam. The wolf stirred at the thought of his younger brother, and Dean turned his head away from the barrel and threw up on the dusty floor.  
The worst of it was the way Sam had spoken to him, tried to reach him and reassure him through the whole ordeal. Like there was any way back from this. Like Dean hadn’t just ruined everything. They’d had their problems –God knew it, and so did every angel in Heaven and every demon in Hell. Dean had done some reprehensible shit in his time. But this was different. This was Sam. Their foundations, the touchstone that was family, blood, had been blown apart tonight, all because Dean was too weak to put an end to this before he lost control. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Sam’s flashlight beam fell across something spattered on fallen leaves, gleaming darkly on the ground.  
“Is that blood?” Stiles whispered.  
“Yeah. Stay close.” Another howl, close this time, raised the hairs on the back of Sam’s neck. “This way.”  
After a few more steps, Stiles tugged his sleeve and pointed at a spot just ahead. A twisted mess of gore and fur lay in the dirt and pine needles. A rabbit. Sam almost laughed. They crept deeper into the woods, keeping their torches trained on the ground just in front of them, following the occasional sound of howling. More rabbits littered the way, and the scattered remnants of a young deer.  
Sam rounded Stiles behind him as they came to a shelf overlooking the run down to the Hale house.  
“There!” Sam pointed down at where two dark shapes were circling each other. He switched off the flashlight, letting their eyes become accustomed to the moonlight. He lifted the shotgun and signalled for Stiles to cock the pistol he’d leant him. The machete grip was tucked under his belt, the blade running along the back of his leg. He stalked forward, Stiles creeping after him.  
Sam trod carefully, trying not to stumble and give them away. But as they closed in on the wolves slinking through the trees, their forms began to change. Both wolves stood on their hind legs before seeming to shrink. Their faces shortened, as did their arms. Their back’s straightened. By the time Sam and Stiles reached the bottom of the hollow, Scott McCall and Derek Hale stood, naked, facing one another. Sam lowered his gun as Scott took a step towards Derek and rested his cheek on the older boy’s shoulder.  
“Hey!” Sam called when they were a few feet away. Scott and Derek sprung apart and faced Sam and Stiles. “What’s going on? Where’s Dean?”  
Derek walked towards him.  
“You were in my house with him. The new wolf. I could smell you.”  
“He’s my brother. Where is he?”  
“I don’t know. I didn’t give him the bite. I have no connection with him.”  
Sam felt panic trying to claw its way out of his throat. He pointed the gun at Derek.  
“The cartridges in this shotgun are laced with wolfsbane and a few other special ingredients. But that’s by the by ‘cos I’m gonna blow your head off if you make a wrong move, and I’ll bet not even you can heal from that.” Derek glowered up at him from under that dark brow. “Did either of you make a kill tonight, other than Bambi and Thumper back there?”  
“No. Scott came to me because I told him I could help him control it. That’s what I was doing. See – the moon is still up and he’s fine. Aren’t you Scott?”  
Sam looked over Derek’s shoulder towards the boy who was shivering, covered in a sickly, cold sweat. His eyes were still gleaming gold and his lips were barely closed over his lupine fangs.  
“Looks a little shaky to me,” Sam said.  
Stiles brushed past him and ran to his friend, taking his jacket off and slinging it over Scott’s shoulders to hide his nakedness.  
“He’ll be okay, Sam.”  
Sam felt the situation running away from him. He didn’t trust Derek, but he seemed to hold Scott in thrall. He couldn't shoot the McCall kid in front of Stiles. He didn’t particularly want to shoot him period. All he cared about right now was finding Dean.  
“He came to find me,” Derek said, as if reading Sam’s mind. “He came to kill me, at the house, but I guess he had a change of heart.”  
“The house!” Sam said. “He was bitten in the house. He’ll be looking for the alpha.”  
He flicked the flashlight on and sprinted for the Hale place.  
And a shotgun blast ripped through the darkness.

Sam burst into the basement, his legs so shaky he thought they might fold beneath him.  
“Dean!”  
His brother was slumped against the far wall. The shotgun lay by him on the floor. Sam threw himself towards his brother and skidded across the rotten floor on his knees.  
“Dean!” He snarled his fingers in Dean’s messy hair and tilted his face up. Dean’s eyes fluttered open and Sam saw track marks on his cheeks where he’d been crying. “Jesus, Dean you scared me.” Sam pushed Dean’s face into his shoulder and gathered his brother’s body to him.  
“I couldn’t do it, Sam. I couldn’t leave you.”  
Dean’s voice was muffled against Sam’s body, and little hiccups stilted his words. He sounded so young.  
“Shhh. It’s okay, Dean. You made it. You didn’t kill anyone. You’re fine.”  
Dean pulled back and looked at Sam like he was crazy.  
“I’m fine, Dean. I’m fine. We’ll talk later okay?”  
He jerked his head back to where Scott, Stiles and Derek were watching them. Dean’s hands came up and cupped his face.  
“I’m so sorry, Sammy. I really did it this time. I’m so sorry.”  
Sam glanced over his shoulder before leaning in close and whispering into his brother’s ear.  
“I liked it, okay? I wanted it.” Dean’s shocked face would have been funny under other circumstances. He cleared his throat, hoping the rest of the wolf contingency hadn’t heard him, or at least hadn’t put two and two together. He was pretty sure he’d told Stilinski that Dean was his brother. He knuckled the tears out of his eyes. “Let’s get you up. We’ve got work to do. Derek’s gonna teach you how to control this thing.”

They spent the rest of the night in the woods, Dean and Scott learning how to shift between lupine and human states at will. Dean was a quick study, which came as no surprise to Sam. He’d always been adaptable. He’d had to be. But Sam wondered how he’d deal with the changing form of their relationship. And he’d have to deal with it, because now Sam had tasted that particular forbidden fruit, he had no intention of abstaining again.  
He watched as Derek flung his brother around the clearing, testing his new physicality. He felt a band of arousal tighten around his loins as Dean’s muscles and smooth, freckled skin, almost luminous in the pale moonlight, emerged from under the wolf’s fur. He wondered what it would be like to get on all fours for human Dean. Imagined his brother’s plush lips on him, sinking into the tight, rippling heat of him. It seemed Dean wasn’t the only one with a latent beast inside of him. Now and then, Dean’s green-gold gaze found him in the gloom, and Sam wanted to howl. Wanted to scream into the night, throw his head back and laugh and laugh until his voice failed him.  
Stiles sauntered over and dropped to sit beside him in the fallen leaves.  
“It’s kind of…beautiful.”  
Sam smiled.  
“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”  
“So you’re not gonna take them in? Dissect their brains or whatever it is you guys do?”  
“Nope.” Sam shook his head. “This case…it’s complicated.”  
“Your brother became the case. I get it. Must be a risk in your line of work.”  
For the first time in years, Sam’s body remembered the craving for demon blood, his guts twisting, jonseing for it, like he was still an addict.  
“Yeah. It’s always a risk.”  
“So what’re you gonna do?”  
Sam sighed.  
“We got a few leads…few lines of enquiry to follow up.”  
“You think there’s a cure?”  
“Maybe. Yeah. If there is, we’ll find it. I can promise you that.”  
Stiles picked at the cuff of his jacket.  
“Everything’s gonna be different from now on, isn’t it?”  
Sam clapped him on the shoulder.  
“Yeah. Yeah it really is.”

The Impala’s tyre hissed on the wet asphalt as Dean drove his baby out of the motel parking lot. Sam waved to McCall and Stilinski out of the passenger window. Dean noticed the way Stiles crowded Scott, shoulders bumping, like he was afraid he was going to fly away. It was kind of sweet but he’d never have said it out loud.  
Dean had found a case in New Jersey –a dead janitor in a locked laboratory- and since Sam had made it clear he had no intention of letting his brother check out just yet, he was hankering after a bit of normality, as laughable and warped as their definition of ‘normality’ might be.  
“They’re good kids,” Sam said when the boys were just specks in the rear view.  
“Yeah, but this doesn’t sit right with me, Sammy. We’re keeping two sets of eyes and ears and my new freaky wolf nose on Beacon Hills until we figure this situation out. There may not have been any more deaths this time, but we still don’t know who or what bit me and Scott, or killed Derek’s sister.”  
He felt Sam nod his agreement.  
“Derek’s gonna call if he makes any in-roads.”  
Dean snorted.  
“Yeah. Derek. What kind of a name is that anyway. Surly motherfucker.”  
Sam eyeballed him incredulously. So maybe Dean had to grudgingly admit the guy wasn’t so bad. For a werewolf. He drove a Camaro, for a start.  
There was no such thing as silence for Dean anymore. Everything was amplified – Sam’s fingers drumming on his knee, the Impala’s engine, birdsong outside. He could even hear the twin beats of his heart and Sam’s. But the absence of words, both of them lost to their own thoughts and too damn close not to know what those thoughts were, was thick and oppressive. Eventually Sam opened his mouth and Dean cut him off as he took in a breath.  
“I don’t wanna talk about it Sam. What I did, it was unforgivable, and if you never wanted to see me again, I wouldn’t blame you.”  
Sam mashed his forehead against the fogged up window and groaned.  
“When it is going to penetrate that thick skull of yours, Dean? I’m not going anywhere. You’re my brother. I need you.”  
Dean felt anger rising up, swelling in his chest, hot and acidic like heartburn.  
“I raped you, Sam! Nothing too brotherly about that!”  
“I liked it, Dean! I liked being pinned down by my own brother, who just happened to be a freaking wolf at the time, and pounded. I liked it, and I got off. So I guess neither of us is exactly a boy scout right now.”  
Dean pulled the car over and turned to face Sam. He looked so earnest, that Dean found himself supressing a laugh, even though nothing about this was funny.  
“You know, just because you…there’s this gland, and when-”  
“Fuck you, Dean! I don’t need a biology lesson. I’m trying to tell you that this was…this felt like it was a long time coming.”  
“What?!”  
“You know the wolf just removes your inhibitions. You can’t tell me you’ve never thought about it, Dean. I know you. I know you’d rather have cut your own hand off than do something inappropriate, but c’mon man. After all these years. Don’t tell me you never thought about it. After everything we’ve been through. Can’t you just let us have this?”  
Dean had thought about it. Dean defined himself by it. It had been part of him for as long as he could remember, eating him up from the inside like a cancer. If he was a better man, he’d have removed himself from the picture a long time ago. He’d tried. Jesus, how he’d tried. But it seemed that Death and God and the angels and the demons and Lucifer himself couldn’t keep the Winchester boys apart for long. Sam thought he was the tainted one, but Dean’s inner darkness saw Sam’s and raised it. He’d always thought of himself as a monster, and now he really was one.  
But Sam was reaching out for him, brushing his cheek with those stupidly long fingers and looking at him like he was something so precious and sacred that Dean couldn’t help but tip forward. Then they were kissing, and the soft press of his brother’s mouth felt like a benediction. Sam’s fist grabbed his jacket and pulled him in even closer. Sam’s tongue slid alongside his own. Sam’s hair, still damp from the shower, tickled his face, and Sam’s strong, white teeth sank into the plump flesh of his lower lip. He’d always had Sam down as a biter. The thought made a warm rush of blood plump his dick. He pulled back, gulped in air.  
“You really want this?”  
Sam licked his lips. Wolfish. His kaleidoscope eyes were glassy.  
“I really want this, Dean. Want you in me. Wanna be inside you. Wanna suck you and feel your mouth on me. Want scrapes and bruises and bites. Want to push you up against a wall, wrap your legs around my hips and let gravity impale you on my hard, throbbing-”  
“Jesus Christ, Sam! You couldn’t have mentioned all this, like, half an hour ago when we still had a room?”  
Sam laughed.  
“If you’re a really good puppy, I’ll even let you sleep in the bed with me.”  
Dean rolled his eyes and adjusted himself in his jeans.  
“When we get to New Jersey, I’m gonna make you pay for that.”  
He pulled back out onto the road. He could smell Sam, the arousal seeping out of his pores, the spot of wetness soaking into his boxers. He groaned inwardly and rolled his shoulders. It was going to be a very long drive.

 


End file.
